This started as a short reply to an email, believe it or not,

but it grew on the keyboard, so it ended up in the Powder Keg.

The problem with prayer in schools is so simple it's easily missed.
What prayer? Christian? Jewish? Buddhist meditation?
Or Arab ablutions and bowing in prayer ????????????
What language? English, Spanish, Chinese, Japanese, Arab?

I'm sure Jesus would be on the side of allowing everyone to have their beliefs. Maybe not the Jesus that some believe in, but the man who lived.

We've just seen how the Hispanic American National Anthem was pooh poohed, even though it seemed to be an attempt to honor it in their native tongue. I'll say it again! Yes, even though it seemed to honor it! Who the Hell made English God's language!!!

Unless prayer is VERY non-denominational, it would violate the constitution! So if the Constitution means anything at all, and it should, if we want to consider ourselves Americans, and preserve the heritage that's gotten us this far, then it's best to keep prayer where it belongs. In churches, temples, synagogues, nature, and my bathroom. That's where I do my daily readers, while sitting on the porcelain altar. See? There ARE many places to pray, as you said.

The very next thing the Evangelicals will say is, "Hey! Let's not teach evolution in schools!" They're already promoting their Creationism! Trying to get it into text books, and evolution out! I think the serpent in Eden was an Evangelical preacher!

I don't know where the Universe came from. Even the Big Bang is incomprehensible. How could it all have come from the size of a pea? And I don't know where life comes from. But you can clearly see when it's gone. You can see it in your own life, and you can see it on the news. The life force should be honored more than a particular set of beliefs. Isn't a belief something we choose? Perhaps God gave us a multiple choice exam including different religious/spiritual beliefs, with the last option being "all of the above?" Did we fail the test?

This was all covered in the other article I wrote in October, which was in response to the email you signed back then! You replied to my email then, saying you still believe in it, but did you read the page? Sure, kinda long, maybe not worth the time. I spent most of a day, 8-10 hours researching and writing it. here

I got the same email from an AA friend this spring, and replied with my page, but I sent it to "All" in the mailing list I was in. Equal representation! Her mother wrote me back, saying she had researched it too, and that it was bogus, but her daughter gets caught up sometimes, and doesn't always do the research she should.
Moral, you can't believe everything you read!
My writing is either fictional or opinionated, so it can't be believed either!

I've had a quote by Milton Mayer, 1969, on my wall for MANY years:

"A good education is not vocational training; because training is not education. Animals and slaves are trained; people are educated. The purpose of education is not a job; that's the purpose of apprenticeship. The purpose of education is human freedom."

Can't find that quote online in quick fashion, but came across this by him: click
http://www.thirdreich.net/Thought_They_Were_Free.html

Please take the time to read it. It's more important than anything I write! It explains the step by step process of blinding/enslaving a nation! I know it's long, but Hell, let's not become the 4th Reich! It's King George and his putrid Evangelicals all the way!

It's about all of us who sit around, thinking little things mean nothing. Yes, me too. I should be out there doing something. I justify my existence by writing, and having opinions. Of course in others' eyes, that means I'm not worth living. But, well, I guess I'll keep doing what I do so well, regardless.

Allowing a country's dominant cultural group to "train" children to their particular beliefs, enforces an ethnicity, and thereby forms an elite, which increases persecution and discrimination against other beliefs.

Children deserve better! So they don't end up like where Milton Mayer writes:
"... in my case my little boy, hardly more than a baby, saying "Jew swine," collapses it all at once, and you see that everything, everything, has changed and changed completely under your nose."

Never forget how an elite Aryan group exterminated Jews.
Never forget our own KKK and their white supremacy, but still Christians, huh?
Never forget that Jesus died because he preached about brotherhood, and was a threat to the church of the time, the Jews.

Isn't it interesting how things turn in circles just like our planet?

The Jews sell out Jesus to the Romans who have their polytheism, but mostly just believe in power and luxurious living.
The German tribes destroy the remains of the Roman Empire a few years after that.
THEN
Two thousand years later a group of Germans gains power and tries to exterminate the same group that turned Jesus over.
The Jews are given a homeland after WW II. Fifty years later THEY are bombing Arab cities, engaged in a genocide of their own. Yes, genocide. Not military targets. Homes, roads, bridges, electric and water companies, women, children, and as of July 28, 2006, humanitarian aid workers and a convoy trying to get Lebanese citizens out of the country.

A never ending swirl of violence and greed and corruption.

King George sits in his white tower of ignorance, approving of Isreal's actions. Why? Because the Arabs have a lot more oil than the Jews. Why do we accept this man as our President? He should have been impeached long ago, for starting a war with no basis other than his own misinformed beliefs. You don't have to believe or trust me, but God, you'd better STOP believing and trusting George W. Bush. He's an atrocity to the American way of life. The Patriot Act should have gotten HIM arrested by now.

He likes the Evangelicals, and that's enough reason to distrust them as well.

America still has too much potential to squander our heritage.
Yes, we'll have to wait for a couple years, till King George's Regime will end, unless he declares himself Emperor George! Let's not make any more grievous errors now!

I hope you see the problems involved with prayer. The people who push for prayer in schools don't. Or maybe like Milton Mayer says, maybe they do. Maybe there is a process forming in someone's mind? It scares me how people fall for things so easily! That's why I get upset with people who are being led like sheep.

The cliff may look a long ways off when you're running towards it, blindly running, being chased by wolves that like mutton. You know that the butt of mutton ahead of you is running for a reason, and you trust that butt, so you join in, chasing that curly little tail till, "Hey! Where'd you go?"

Most of the sheep herd dies or gets trampled in "Far from the Madding Crowd" when they plunge over the cliff, after, yes, just running alongside each other, running with the crowd. That's what sheep are good at. Mingling together, eating grass close to the ground, and running in a panic to escape dogs and wolves. In this case it's a dog's fault, for not having been "trained" well.

We owe ourselves a better education than that dog got! That requires some time and research and above all the ability to take an aerial view rather than looking across the landscape. From above you can see that the cliff is not a greener pasture! And it's much closer than you ever thought.

I apologize since this diatribe seems aimed at you. I prefer to think that you're stimulating me to research and expound on my own views. You're bright and intelligent. And that's what concerns me. There are a lot of people who aren't so bright and intelligent, and unfortunately, they seem to be the ones running our country and the world. That worries me as much as the fact that our government is now engaged in spying on its own citizens. I'm not sure that will change in two years, but I can pray that it does. Should I do that while sitting on the crapper, George?

doug